By Linda Robertson HE saw her the moment he walked in the door ... and it was love at first sight for David Roberts. As soon as he laid eyes on her, he knew she was the one for him.

The year was 1942 and David, who was in the Merchant Navy, had just arrived in Scotland.

Together with a fellow Welshman, he travelled into Glasgow by tram from Rothesay Docks, and was pointed in the direction of Hope Street, where they were told they'd find some pubs.

"We walked up Hope Street and saw a little light in the dark - it was during the war - which was the Pot Still public house," he recalls.

In they walked, to find it filled with groups of Canadian airmen and WAAFS - the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

Among them was Glasgow girl Mary, a flight mechanic.

"When I saw her I said to my pal, that's the girl I'm going to marry'. It was love at first sight." And that love is still going strong for David and Mary who have been together for 64 years and married for 62.

The couple, who live in Milton are both 83, although Mary points out: "I'm older by three months, so he's my toyboy!"

Yet David says that she didn't take much notice of him at first, because he and his friend were dressed in old shirts and trousers.

"That's true, they were not to my taste at all," says Mary with a chuckle.

But David chips in: "I must have made some headway because I asked her for another meeting and she agreed."

Their secret? It's simple, says Mary. "He has never gone out the door without kissing me. He's romantic, he's been like that all his life - a sentimental old fool," she says with a laugh.

"We were in Wales last Valentine's Day and I woke up to a rose on my pillow.

"We don't go to bed in anger, everything is always cleared up."

And it's just as well Mary didn't take offence on their first date together. "I took her to the pictures but I fell asleep," laughs David. "We saw each other for the weekend but she had to go back to Errol in Perthshire and I joined a troopship with 5000 WAAFs to take them to Singapore.

"Five thousand WAAFS and not one of them was her!"

The next time he was on leave, he told his family in Wales that he was getting married and the couple tied the knot in St Aloysius Church in Rose Street on December 11, 1944.

While Hugh was in the Navy, Mary moved into their first home, a tenement flat in the West End. "It was a single end in Partick, which my husband had never heard of, or seen," she says. "When he came up the stairs he thought all the doors in the landing were his!"

David travelled the world with the Merchant Navy, but finally left in 1950.

"We were torpedoed off Iceland in 1941 and spent three days on a raft before the destroyer HMS Malcolm picked us up." He was also posted to Pearl Harbor three months after it was attacked. "I was there for two years, came home and that's when I met Mary."

The couple have three daughters and two sons - David, 61, Margaret, who turns 60 this year, Glenys, 47, Dawn 40 and Glyn, 38.

They have 12 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Mary says: "It sounds silly to say, but we've had a charmed life. We've been very, very lucky as we haven't had any big upsets.

"We've always been well and we've never been rich, but we've never been poor. Catherine Cookson should be writing this!"

They're thrilled to be our Valentine's Day winners, and are looking forward to their gourmet, seven-course meal at the Windows rooftop restaurant at the Carlton George Hotel tonight.

"She had no idea I was doing it," said David.

"I never said a word.

Taking her out for a meal would thank her for the wonderful years she has given myself and my family."